


Collapse

by Samwritess



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e17 Pusher, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26949553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samwritess/pseuds/Samwritess
Summary: She fought the collapse for as long as she could. But even the strongest of pillars comes crumbling down eventually.Missing scene for Pusher, Scully takes Mulder home.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	Collapse

She fought the collapse for as long as she could. She carries him out of the building, into the car, his weight leaning into her small shoulders. He whispered in her ear, questioning if she was ok for the fourth time since they got in the elevator and she offered him reassuring nods and a quirk of her lip, smoothing sweat-slicked hair off his brow as it furrowed, trying to get a read on her. He tried to walk on his own but the exhaustion of sharing your skull with another man overtook him, and he draped his body over her tiny frame, trusting only her to hold him. He crumbled down on top of her and she was forced to stand like Atlas and hold the weight of her world. 

Sloughing him off into the passenger seat she drove them home in silence. His phone rang and he blindly reached to answer it, but she snatched it from the center console before he could, silencing it. He stared, dazed and confused, at her set jaw and white knuckles, before he let the silence take him and slumped into the cool window, letting the rumble of the interstate pull his thoughts away. 

Her hand met his cheek in a gentle swipe to let him know they had arrived home. 

“I can do it” he had insisted, but when he stumbled out of the car she was right at his side, placing a hand on his chest to steady him. 

“I’ll walk you up” she replied, and let him try to convince himself he could have made it there without her. His fingers wound their way around her shoulder and she shivered as he gripped her there. But she did not waver.

Someone slammed a car door and the sound rang like a gunshot off the cement walls and he was the one with white knuckles now, bruising fingers latched onto her after both of them jumped in fear. He released a breath when she met his eye cautiously, and the pair moved inside. 

The elevator was filled to the brim with their silence, she doesn’t know how anyone else could have gotten on. The third floor dinged and doors opened to an empty hallway they were both grateful for. Explaining their fragile state to a neighbor would have been difficult. They walked joined at the hip to his door, and as his hands shook with his key she stole it from his fingers to press it into the lock herself. 

He tumbled forward with the door, his final resting place in sight, abandoning her sturdy crutch to fall neatly onto the couch with a grunt. She followed him in, watching him close his eyes and settle into the leather. She stood over him a statue, stillness to conquer his shake, watching as he trembled with exhaustion. She wanted him to rest, she wanted the tension to release itself from his shoulders, she wanted the thoughts that were haunting his mind to leave and never return. She was frightened by how easily she would have killed for him. How thoughts of pure oxygen leapt from her brain at the sight of him with that gun pressed to his temple. Her only thoughts were of how to get it, and how when she did she was going to pull the trigger as many times as it would take to get him out of their heads. She wasn’t thinking of all the lives this man had taken from the world, that he was a murderer, a sick bastard who deserved to be dead because of justice. She only cared that he might take away _his_ life. 

He went to sit up, but she practically saw the stars spinning behind his eyes. Carefully she pressed him back down onto the couch, his protesting weak.

“You need to rest”, she insisted. He nodded slowly, but wrapped his fingers around her wrist. 

“Please don’t leave”, he whispered, and it was her turn to nod. She sank to her knees slowly, and he relaxed his grip on her so she could spin to sit with her back against the couch on the cold floor. Her hand reached up over her shoulder and their fingers twisted together. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back, call and response. 

“I was so sure” she heard him mumble. She didn’t know if it was for her to hear, but the silence had seeped so deeply into her ears that she felt like screaming, so she replied. 

“Sure about what?” 

“Sure that if he had me, I would be able to fight it”, he sighed, choking slightly on his words. She shook her head, amazed at his arrogance. 

“Why, Mulder? He pushed people to kill themselves, light themselves on fire. He convinced a man’s heart to stop beating and you truly believed you could fight it?” 

He laughed and she felt like shaking him. 

“I don’t know. I was his worthy adversary. I knew him, I knew what he wanted, how he ticked. Something in me believed he wouldn’t be able to control me” 

His voice grew stronger with every word, and she was inclined to believe him. She couldn’t deny that she’d been praying for the same thing. With all the demons that had haunted them over the years, when she watched him walk through the hospital doors she had wanted to believe that he was strong enough to fight it. He was brilliant, he knew the mind better than anyone she knew, but still it wasn’t enough. She had practically begged him at the table, begged him to be stronger than he was, begged him to do the impossible. 

“But he did. And you almost shot yourself”

Her words were bitter and she tasted the bile in her throat at the image of Mulder’s brilliant brains bloody on her blouse, blown to pieces by his own hubris. 

“I almost shot you,” he whispered harshly, “That's worse.”

“Mulder how can you say that?” she choked out. 

“Because if I died of my own arrogance I would have paid the price for my mistake. If you died because of me I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself”. As he spoke he gripped her palm tighter, stroking his thumb over hers like a metronome for his confession. 

“Mulder if you died…” she couldn’t finish the sentence. Her head dropped and her mind was invaded with the thought of him gone, wiped from the face of the earth for good, his wonderful confident mind splattered on pristine hospital tile.

She fought the collapse for as long as she could. But her pillar came crumbling to dust and a sob wracked her body. She was supposed to be his strength, she wasn’t the one who’s mind had been invaded, torn in half, pitted against itself. But he pulled on her hand and she twisted up into him, wrapping her arms around his middle. She held onto him for dear life and sobbed into his shirt. The hand she had been holding found a place on the back of her head, pressing her lightly to his stomach, and she felt him shake under her. 

“I’m so sorry” he wept, arms wrapping around her and pulling her off her knees into him. She fit herself on top of him, her head tucked beneath his chin, his arms engulfing her as if he could pull her further into him. His apologies spilled out into her hair as he pressed his lips to her scalp and begged for forgiveness. Eventually the words fell away and only their sniffs and hiccups were left, their tears falling silently in tandem. When even those drifted away, she pulled herself up off of his chest and he followed her, refusing to let her be out of his grasp for even a second. 

“Scully I need you to know.” His eyes were wet and pleading. He looked at her with such intensity she was frightened. “I need you to know how much you mean to me” 

They were close. Too close. This kind of collapse only comes with closeness and until quite recently they had forbidden this level of intimacy for fear of this exact scenario. She was practically sitting in his lap and his arms were still around her somehow and there was a wet stain in the center of his chest and it was all far too much to deny. 

But he needed her to know like she needed him to know, and there was no pretending any more.

“I know” she whispered, so quiet it was almost in her head. He nodded silently and pressed his forehead to hers, their eyes closing, hands falling intertwined again between them. 

Slowly she inched her face forward, eyes still closed, exploring the contact between the two of them. Her nose brushed his cheek and she felt him still like a statue, awaiting what was to come. Her lips pressed to the corner of his mouth, quick and dangerous, and she pulled back almost instantly. Her tongue darted out and she tasted the salt of him on her lips. She squeezed his hands, and felt a flutter within her when he pulsed back quickly. 

She was braver this time, finding his lips with hers, and he kissed her back instantly, desperate to convey his affection. Neither pushed deeper, allowing the soft contact of lips on lips to linger between them, a simple profession of the utmost devotion.

She pulled back eventually, wanting to look at him fully. She smiled a tentative smile when she saw the pain that had dwelled in his eyes replaced by the smallest glimmer of hope. 

“Now there’s that smile I was looking for” he teased, which only resulted in her smile widening. 

“You should get some rest Mulder” 

“Only if you’ll rest with me”, and he pulled her back down until she lay slotted next to him, face pressed into the warmth of his chest. The silence of sleep taking them both, comforting confessions still hanging in the air surrounding them. They had time to sort through the rubble tomorrow. For now, their time belonged to them and them alone. 


End file.
